Tiny Little Thing by Beatriz Williams

idiot Doe, shoeless, crawling as silently as a berry-red cat across the floor toward the heap of whimpering child and moaning mother.
    •   •   •
    A fterward, Cap found Tiny in the kitchen, cradling the little boy in a soft woolen blanket. God knew where she found it. He’d gone to sleep against her shoulder, slack and blissful, his eyelashes like tiny feathered crescents against his pink cheeks. Above, a single bare bulb cast a glow over them both.
    Cap swallowed back the ache in his throat.
    “His grandmother’s here. Police want you.”
    She turned her pale face toward him. “How’s his mother?”
    “Ambulance took her. I think she’s all right. I’ve seen worse.” A hell of a lot worse. “Looks like the shoulder. No organs.”
    She rose to her feet, lifting the sleeping boy without a sign of effort. Stronger than she looked, Miss Tiny Doe. “Will you take him?”
    “Sure. If you want.” He held out his arms. “You okay?”
    “Yes. I just don’t want to see the police, that’s all.” She laid the child in his arms, taking care as the small head transferred from her slim shoulder to Cap’s. She tucked the blanket around the little boy and wiped away a small smudge of dried blood from his forehead. “Careful.”
    “You have to see the police, you know. Give a statement.”
    She hesitated. “Are there reporters there?”
    “They’re not letting them in. But, yeah, they’re outside the door.”
    She unbuttoned the cardigan from around her shoulders and stuck her arms through the holes, one by one, putting it on properly. The flush was returning to her skin. “Can the police come back here for their statement?”
    “I don’t see why not. I’ll tell them you need some quiet.”
    “And are they finished with you?”
    The boy stirred, made a small noise in his throat. Cap hoisted him up higher to get a better grip. “I’ll probably have to go back to the station later for more questioning. Because of everything.”
    Everything.
Cap’s instant reaction when the second man turned toward Tiny, the swift strike to his arm, the struggle for the gun, the snap of bone. Capitulation. Sending Em to the phone to call the police, because the kitchen was empty; the cook and his assistant had fled through the open back door. Waiting, waiting, trying to keep everybody calm while the police came. Tiny taking the child, calling for help for the mother, taking out her own handkerchief and showing someone how to hold it on the wound. Jesus, what a morning. He was getting a headache now, the hangover of battle. Like the melancholy you got after sex sometimes, the departure of adrenaline, leaving only yourself and the paltry contents of your soul.
    “I see. Yes, of course you will. Thank you,” she said, as an afterthought. “Thank you for . . . well, for saving us. It could have been so much worse.”
    He studied her wide-open eyes, the length of her eyelashes. She looked sincere, and humble. No frostiness now, here in the kitchen of Boylan’s Coffee Shop.
    “You’re welcome,” he said, and walked back into the dining area.
    The grandmother let out a cry when she saw him. She rushed forward and engulfed the boy into her arms, without so much as a word to Cap. Not that he minded. He could take Tiny’s thanks, but not a stranger’s. He kept his hand on the boy’s back until he was sure the old lady had him firmly, and then he turned to one of the cops standing around with notepads.
    “Well? Do you need anything else?”
    “Yeah, we’re gonna need you down at the precinct, buddy. Standard procedure.”
    “Can you give me a lift?”
    “Sure thing.”
    Another cop walked up. “I thought you said the broad was in the back.”
    “Yeah. The kitchen. Red dress.”
    The cop shrugged. “She’s not there now.”
    •   •   •
    B y the time Cap turned the corner of Marlborough Street, it was nearly three o’clock in the afternoon, and the sun hit the fourth and third floor windows of his